Africa: Its animals in rehab, on safari

Saturday

This week's column is the fourth in a series about my July 17-August 2 trip to Africa as a member of a mission team from Nashville's First Presbyterian Church.

This week’s column is the fourth in a series about my July 17-August 2 trip to Africa as a member of a mission team from Nashville’s First Presbyterian Church.

During our time in Nairobi, Kenya, we visited two rehabilitation centers for native animals. The first worked with orphaned elephants.

At first, we couldn’t see the elephants for the people crowded alongside a semicircular sturdy fence about 3½ feet high. Within that fence were several elementary-aged elephants and their attendants.

An attendant told us, “They were either orphaned by poachers shooting their mothers, or we found them fallen in wells, or they were abandoned with no mother in the area.”

After feeding the elephants from really big bottles, the keepers subtly guided them to walk near the fence so that folk could reach out and touch them.

But should an elephant act interested in returning the touches, its keeper quickly got between it and its admirers.

Soon, the first batch was led away to parts unknown. After they disappeared, a “middle school” group paraded toward us. The one thing both sets had in common: they were covered with orange dirt. I suspect they enjoyed rolling in or dousing themselves with the dust, which may have cooled their skin.

Next, we visited a rehab facility for giraffes and warthogs. Guests there can climb steps to a second-story balcony, where they are level with the giraffes’ heads and can feed them.

We hadn’t been there long when Daisy and her attendant appeared down a path. Her attendant warned us to either feed her or stay clear, because she was prone to head-butt. “No food, no friendship with Daisy,” he said.

I had food, so both Daisy and I were happy. But having “been there” in 2005, I knew that being eyeball to eyeball with a giraffe in recovery was no match for seeing them in the wild, and was glad that a safari was next on our agenda.

At the safari camp, our rooms, except for the bath area, had canvas tent walls that zipped shut sans doors. Fortunately, staff personnel would close the windows and sides while we were at dinner, so we never had to wrestle with the canvas. But it would have been worth it, since the rooms featured that rarity of rarities thus far in our journey, modern bathrooms.

My roommate and I were still unpacking when one of us noticed two tiny deer, called dik-diks, in the clearing outside our tent. I quietly unzipped our non-door and held its flap while she eased through far enough to snap a picture.

When we left for dinner, both deer were curled up, lounging in our clearing, and didn’t budge when we walked by almost close enough to touch them. With their delicate hooves so small they could be shod with dimes, they challenged my loyalty to giraffes, zebras, and elephants as African favorites.

During the two days of safari, we traveled in Land Rovers and such that we could stand up in. We saw lions and cheetas; a huge black rhino with its young one; more mostly-submerged hippos than we could count; scruffy hyenas; deer varieties including topi (called blue jeans because of blue patches on their rumps), Thompson gazelles, and impala; migrating wildebeests; and herds of zebras, to name a few.

Though not normally a fan of baboons, I got tickled at one baby trying in vain to escape his mother’s diligent grooming. It reminded me of little kids trying to squirm away from a washrag.

As we waited while a matriarch elephant crossed in front of us (one does wait when that happens), our driver pointed out that, as big as they are, you can’t hear them walk. “They have shock absorbers in their feet,” he said.

At one point while traversing the huge expanse of countryside, we crossed paths with a Land Rover that was stuck in the mud. We stopped to help, upping the number of vehicles there to five.

Later, a nearby tour vehicle’s tire skittered off and landed against a tree. Its passengers and driver were divided up among us and other vehicles that had stopped to help. The clear message was: you don’t leave anyone stranded in lion country.

One of the most unexpected sightings was of Safari balloons —— big, boldly patterned balloons lazing in the sky. Back at the camp lobby, a man was signing folk up for rides in those.

We were not among the signers, because it was time to head back to Nairobi, then home.

Early on, I said there would be four columns on Africa. But there’s so much more to share, another one will likely appear somewhere along the way.

Until then …

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Wilmoth Foreman is a Columbia native and a former educator. Visit her website at www.wilmothforeman.com.

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